Serious (albeit slightly personal) question for you all...

In reply to stroker :

Honestly, I get the most joy from watching my kids succeed and helping them in anything they endeavor to do.  My 2nd biggest expense after providing the family a home is providing for kids education. 

So things I've done?  I've done a lot and will do more, but that was and is my journey.  Your journey is yours!  Write down some things you want to do or aspire to do and do them! 

You are clearly in a funk.  One of the quickest ways I have ever found to get out of a funk is to go spend time alone in nature.  Start there.  Go someplace new and just enjoy some of the beauty of the world.  If you spend too much time in a city or on the internet the world can look pretty bleak.  If you watch TV, especially the news, or worry about things that really don't matter you will feel even worse. 

Watching my daughter do her best swimming and kicking butt gives me lots of joy and pride.  She loves it and is really good at it.  You can find something you are good at too, but it is lots of work as well. 

I think a lot of people reach a point in life where they become disillusioned because the feel that they have not left a significant enough mark on the world.

My philosophy is that I try to  follow the " don't be a dick" rule and let the butterfly effect take care of the rest. 

See my signature for life goals.

No matter your age, this little book has some good ideas. Not a how-to; more of a 'things to consider' tome.

Appleseed said:

My kindness. I do nice things for people and genuinely enjoy it. Their joy becomes my joy. It's not something you go to college for. It can be taught,  but it's more like a religion or philosophy. You just feel it in your guts. And it feels good.

I smile at people and ask how there day is going ,find some thing nice to say ,not just to say it but really mean it and connect .We are social creatures that need to help pull each other up or in some cases side ways out of the way of a speeding motor car.

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to stroker :

Honestly, I get the most joy from watching my kids succeed and helping them in anything they endeavor to do.  My 2nd biggest expense after providing the family a home is providing for kids education. 

So things I've done?  I've done a lot and will do more, but that was and is my journey.  Your journey is yours!  Write down some things you want to do or aspire to do and do them! 

You are clearly in a funk.  One of the quickest ways I have ever found to get out of a funk is to go spend time alone in nature.  Start there.  Go someplace new and just enjoy some of the beauty of the world.  If you spend too much time in a city or on the internet the world can look pretty bleak.  If you watch TV, especially the news, or worry about things that really don't matter you will feel even worse. 

Watching my daughter do her best swimming and kicking butt gives me lots of joy and pride.  She loves it and is really good at it.  You can find something you are good at too, but it is lots of work as well. 

By being alone in nature is understanding that we  are part of it , a tree's roots looks similar to our cardiovascular system ,breath and be in the moment 

 Actually the 2 failed marriages can be a source of pride. You were willing to try, and try again. You didn't stay in when it wasn't going to work out.

You go to work each day ( I assume ). You may not enjoy it, but be proud you are willing to do it to support your family. You don't sound like someone who gives up. There is pride in that.

Look at the things you enjoy doing. Practice, invest time and learn to do them even better. Confidence will follow and pride comes with it.

Make yourself happy and the rest falls into place.

The stuff I make isn't the best but I show off anyhow.  My cars aren't show winners but they are fun to drive, my house isn't in architecture weekly but it keeps the rain off. The stories I write aren't publishable but I enjoy writing them.

golfduke said:

Appleseed said:

My kindness. I do nice things for people and genuinely enjoy it. Their joy becomes my joy. It's not something you go to college for. It can be taught,  but it's more like a religion or philosophy. You just feel it in your guts. And it feels good.

This echos with me deeply.  As someone who struggles with Self-worth issues, I do my damndest every morning to wake up with a positive attitude and be overly nice and helpful in every interaction I have that day.  You never know how good grace can change someone else's day.  When I die, there's gonna be a lot more people saying I was a good person than a bad one... and that's something I'm immensely proud of. 

Came here to more or less say this.  A lot of you have commented on how my life story needs to be put into a book, and I agree - I've had some amazingly unique and fun experiences in life.  Right now I'm living in a town that doesn't really jive with my political views, I'm working a frustrating, low-pay job but it's work that I love, and I'm divorced and have been single for 7 of the last 10 years.  I've always been a little better than average at blooming where I'm planted, but I would never suggest to anyone to "turn that frown upside down."  I hate that, so I won't ever say it.

I have just learned to find joy where it is and meet it on its terms instead of mine.  I take great pride in my job, and for a while I was pissed that no one appreciated the effort and lengths I went to to make my creations excellent.  Now I just do it knowing that I know and don't care if anyone else even notices.

I live my life in a way that is excellent to me and harms no one else, at least intentionally.  I exist in a love of myself irrespective of how it is perceived by anyone else.  Every once in a while someone comes along who magically sees the ME inside of me and it's those moments that make it all worth it.

I think my secret is that I'm a realist.  I'm neither glass-half-full nor glass-half-empty.  I just see there is a glass and I'm thankful for half a glass of beer.  I never could do that optimism thing where I pretend it's more beer than it is, and I can't do that pessimism thing where I'm sad it's not a full beer.  It's just beer.  For me (different for everyone) being optimistic while having a realist mind is always a disappointment because I'm trying to convince myself that things are better than they are when I know they aren't, and being a pessimist doesn't work because I'm dragging myself down to a condition worse than where I am.

I'm not always happy and I'm not always sad, but the thing that has worked for me is that realism keeps me sane.  It's never as bad as you think it is, and it's never as good as it could be, but at least I'm honest with myself about it.  It really adds a credibility to my times when I'm happy and keeps my thoughts rational when I'm not.

I'm happy with who I am and I love myself.  It just is.  Thanks for the beer.

Beer observation:

12oz of beer in a 12oz glass. Yah! Full glass of beer!

12oz of beer in a 24oz glass. Meh. 1/2 a beer

12oz of beer in a 36oz glass. Boo. almost out of beer!

Focus on the beer, not the container.

 Thanks Curtis, just came up with this. Your thoughts?

Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:

Beer observation:

12oz of beer in a 12oz glass. Yah! Full glass of beer!

12oz of beer in a 24oz glass. Meh. 1/2 a beer

12oz of beer in a 36oz glass. Boo. almost out of beer!

Focus on the beer, not the container.

 Thanks Curtis, just came up with this. Your thoughts?

Exactly.  You have a quantity of beer.  Yay beer.

Some people have a 12 oz glass or a 36 oz glass.  Some people have no glass at all.  I'm lucky to have a 24oz glass even though sometimes I want a bigger one.

The older I get, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that life is much less about what you accomplished than how you lived it. 

What makes us pride isn't always logic. Both my parents, myself and all my 3 siblings have gone to colleague and are working reasonably high paid management jobs, in different professional areas. So, the professional part has always just been a given and a the daily grind for me - It's what you do. Normal stuff. I have implemented huge changes in different companies and delivered large projects thru my 15year carrier. That SHOULD vastly overshadow any silly tinkering I do in my home shop! And yet, I am without any doubt more proud of the engine I built for my "Hotrod-Volvo", or for being able to fix my buddies Miata when he wrecked it. And I KNOW that my brothers are the same!

In one families, fixing your cars yourself is a given. In the second, you never hire a carpenter, because everyone should know how to renovate a house. In the third, not a single family member owns a single tool....... but they all have fantastic gardens. Or train dogs. 

Very often, we get so used to doing stuff that we take the skill we developed for granted. Therefore, we expect a result and we only see the failures, not the positive results. The carpenter family aren't proud of putting a new roof on a house (it's just what people do, right?), but amazed that someone can change their own oil.

Nobody cares about me.

Imagine your fan club is standing around waiting for you to show, or everyone is hanging around after your funeral, or some event where everyone you know and love is there. They all decided to get themed T shirts for the occasion.

What does the T shirt say today?

What do you want it to say?

Go from A to B.

We have been tricked into believing life requires a purpose, some grand accomplishment that can stand as our legacy after we have passed. The fact of the matter is it's good enough for a life to be enjoying little moments and experiencing some cool E36 M3 along the way.

I'm proud of some of my accomplishments, creations, personality.

I'm not proud of anything material really - unless its something I made myself, and even then I'm more proud of the hard work or creativity than the object itself.

gearheadmb said:

We have been tricked into believing life requires a purpose, some grand accomplishment that can stand as our legacy after we have passed. The fact of the matter is it's good enough for a life to be enjoying little moments and experiencing some cool E36 M3 along the way.

Yep, x100

pres589 (djronnebaum) said:

I feel like I'm in a somewhat similar mindset, or at least one I'm3³ trying to overcome, so I've got some stuff to share here.  

I think about the things I've done to help family and friends.  I'm proud of showing up.  I like the projects I get into, like the challenges I give myself outside of my job, and I like that I don't run from realistic challenges at my work (give me something I think is unrealistic at work and that's something else...).  I try to stay physically fit and am generally happy with what I'm doing there.  

I generally like myself as a person though I'm trying to learn that I have fewer warts than I sometimes perceive.  This is really important.  To that end, I'm working on journaling, mindfulness, and I see a therapist.  There's all kinds of ways to skin this cat and there's more to I'm doing here; it sounds like this is maybe an area where the OP could spend some time and energy.  

Something I did to help myself organize is a document where I am looking for what I want to be doing with my life.  High level things like "have engaging & collaborative friendships" gets broken down into more details and action steps like people I know to try and collaborate with and learn from or activities to try and maintain or expand on.  I wanted to organize my goals and keep actions in mind, in print, and I check them off as things are accomplished.  

A thought exercise I recently saw, in relation to confidence in relationships, was to write out 50 positive things we bring to a relationship.  I think this really could be applied to all relationships and building our confidence in general if we're not feeling so great about ourselves.  It might be interesting to work through something like that and really think about what makes us ourselves and the positives we possess as individuals.  OP might consider that during some reflective downtime.